In 1978, the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Party opened a new period of reform and opening up. It was also in this year that I entered the book design industry. During this period, I personally experienced the change and promotion of China book design industry from concept to technology. From movable type printing to lithography, from lead printing to offset printing, from manual drawing, pasting and plate making to computer design networking into books … Over the past 40 years, great changes in productivity, production tools and production relations have led to revolutionary paradigm shifts in publishing system composition, output giving and receiving relationship, design thinking concept and so on.
For many years, book binding is mainly about painting the cover. As the saying goes, “people rely on clothes and horses to saddle up, and books rely on books and clothes to dress up”. Restricted by the concept and economic conditions, most of the book makers at that time only cared about the appearance of books, but did not pay attention to the investment in the editing and design of internal texts. The arrangement of books is almost the same; Editing, design, publishing and printing are all managed in one pool; The reading and aesthetic function of books can’t be integrated … These all became the shortcomings of book design art at that time.
In the 1990s, the steady progress of reform and opening up promoted colorful cultural scenes, and the industry was eager to change the backward concept of book design. People of insight in the publishing, design and printing industries have opened a wide platform for international communication, enabling more designers to have a new understanding of the relationship between East and West, inheritance and innovation, nationalization and internationalization, traditional crafts and modern science and technology with an open mind and a strong thirst for knowledge. They broke the limitation of binding, put in a lot of energy and painstaking efforts, strengthened the editing design both inside and outside, and made beneficial exploration for creating the beauty of reading.
The concept of book design began to be updated: books no longer only need beautiful “coats”, but also need to have the overall design concept poured into them. Publishers are beginning to realize that design should not only talk about “price”, but also pay attention to “value”. Only when it is worth the money can it be worthy of this job, and books should be handed down to future generations to reflect their true value. Book design not only becomes a new concept, but also means an attitude. Book designers gradually turn their roles into participants in text communication, and strive to make information have the meaning of time flow in the page space, emphasizing that the fullness of text narration will bring reading motivation and make books a stage for poetic expression of texts. In a word, the design began to have temperature, and designers began to talk about details and seek specificity.
Since the reform and opening up, many young designers have chosen to start their own businesses and participate in social competition as individual designers or independent studios. Groups of newcomers began to devote themselves to the exploration and practice in the field of book design, and their excellent works were loved by readers and attracted attention at home and abroad. With the continuous improvement of the industry order, the three major domestic awards recognized by the industry have also brought design energy and creative vitality to the younger generation of book designers. The national book binding art exhibition, which began in 1959, has gradually matured, and this year has ushered in the ninth national book exhibition..Design art exhibition. This exhibition involves a wide range of events and many participants, and it is the largest competition in the industry. Its holding has promoted the development of book design industry. In 2003, the Shanghai Press and Publication Bureau began to host the “Most Beautiful Books” contest in China, and every winning work was sent to participate in the “Most Beautiful Books in the World” contest in Leipzig. In the past 16 years, 346 books have won the title of “the most beautiful book” in China, among which 19 books have won the title of “the most beautiful book in the world”. China’s “most beautiful book” has gradually become the brand of book design industry, and many readers have also bought collections, which reflects the value of design. In 2007, the former General Administration of Press and Publication established the triennial China Publishing Government Book Award, which is regarded as the highest award in the field of press and publication in China. By participating in these industry competitions and exhibitions, many newcomers in the design field have emerged and gone international, and the book design industry has realized the orderly succession of the old and the new.
Chinese scroll art has a long history and is a dynamic rolling river. Designers should not only cherish the precious cultural heritage left by their ancestors, but also do a good job of inheritance in a down-to-earth manner; At the same time, we should have an open mind, learn from the excellent cultures of all countries in the world, and respect the development law of things, so as to integrate into the trend of progress and realize the sustainable development of China’s book art. We should know that inheriting tradition is not a patterned copy, nor is it a slogan of ostentatious street. Our design cannot be separated from the soil of traditional culture. Inheritance and innovation are like walking on two legs, with the front and back staggered. If the back leg can’t step on the earth effectively, the front foot can’t take a step towards the future, and this earth is the soil of our national culture. Therefore, designers all over the world are looking for new ways to extend the local culture in the modern context. Domestic contemporary book designers should cherish the endless spiritual heritage in the historical context of their own nation, re-recognize the magnificence of oriental ancient books with awe, and then realize innovation.
In addition, book design also needs to pay attention to “experience”. I remember that more than half a century ago, there was no computer design method. My predecessors and I used to ride bicycles to meet, communicate and communicate with the author and all book-related participants. The author’s painstaking efforts on the manuscript; The editor’s devotion to the text; The printer’s concentration in repeatedly debugging the ink-filled seats … makes me know more about respect, responsibility and responsibility when I pick up a small clip on the layout paper to collage lines and words, and I know how to be worthy of the participants and readers. In this process, I have gained not only professional knowledge, but also emotional communication and the attitude of being a man and doing things, which have had an intangible impact on design creation and produced a kind of temperature appeal. At present, there are also many book writers who have passed on this temperature and attitude to this day. They devoted themselves to the new book-making movement and creation with great enthusiasm. “.Happy “post-bookstore culture, trying to show its own artistic concept, after years of efforts, has achieved excellent results, attracting a group of readers with high-quality beautiful books from the outside to the inside.
Grateful for the long history of China’s scroll art and splendid Chinese character culture, I have the courage and pride to be a China book; Thanks for the reform and opening up, I can face the challenges of today’s traditional publishing and modern design, and explore the way forward in the study of reading aesthetics in the transformation of book design concepts. The idea of not imitating the ancient times but soaking the oriental taste, not imitating the foreign countries and rejuvenating the spirit of the times will become the direction of my lifelong book design career. I am willing to work with all my colleagues to create the beauty of books and keep reading with colorful books.